


Stupid Bigamy Laws

by MelyndaR



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol, Drinking, F/M, Polyamory, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 02:31:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7916962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a bad date and impromptu break-up with Daniel, Peggy starts to bemoan stupid bigamy laws, since all of the good men are already taken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stupid Bigamy Laws

“ _You_ ,” Daniel grit out, glaring heatedly across the table at Peggy. “Are terrible.” They were in a restaurant, surrounded and in public – on a date, actually – so he kept his voice quiet, and painfully factual, otherwise Peggy got the feeling he might actually have been shouting at her. “You keep bringing Wilkes up like you’re still talking to him.”

“Which I _am_ , Daniel,” Peggy began to explain. “Because Howard asked—”

He cut her off, his expression becoming even more irate. “And then there’s _Howard_! What are you still doing living in his house? Is he getting from you what he gets from every girl, I’d guess?”

“Howard Stark is my _friend_ ,” Peggy snapped quietly, her tone and gaze both sharpening to knifepoints. “And _nothing more._ He offered to continue letting me live there because he knows – quite _sensibly_ – that living there makes it easier for when I have things to work on with him and Mr. Jarvis.”

“Oh, is Mr. Jarvis on your list of ‘friends’ too? Of course he is.”

Peggy watched him in utter confusion for a moment, then glanced down at his tellingly bone-dry wine glass. _Ah. Drunk._ That didn’t mean that her blood wasn’t still boiling though. She tried to keep her voice calm and steady as she said, “Daniel, I think we should –”

Only to again be cut off as he pointed a finger at her and declared, “You know, I’ve heard a lot of people say that they think you slept your way to the top, Carter, and I think I believe them, the longer I think about it. You’re just a…” the alcohol finally seemed to be soaking into him, blessedly _shutting him up_ as he stammered, “You’re a… a… _chippy_ , is one of your weird words. You’re – _toying_ with respectable men. With me!”

The words seemed familiar somehow, but she didn’t stop to try and place them as she said softly, “Then maybe we just shouldn’t be together anymore, if that’s what you think. Go hail yourself a cab, Daniel, I’ll find my own ride home.”

So saying, she stood from the table and walked out to the nearest payphone.

“Mr. Jarvis? It’s Miss Carter. My plans for the evening seem to have changed. Would you mind giving me a ride back to Howard’s?”

* * *

She stayed depressively silent on the drive back to the mansion, and it struck Edwin as the sort of silence that was weighted with things that she either didn’t know how to say, or didn’t  want to say in the first place. Either way, he had learned that it meant his proverbial ‘partner in crime’ was thinking too much.

Still, on the off chance, he offered quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I do not,” she replied, her tone as arch and as firm as her rigid spine was as she stared out the passenger side window. “I’ve told you before, I…” a strange sort of light dawned in her eyes as she turned towards him, finishing slowly, “—Prefer the silence.”

He glanced between her and the road with concern in his eyes as he asked, “What is it?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head rapidly and went back to staring out the passenger window, lapsing back into a pensive silence. “Nothing at all.”

* * *

_“If you are implying that I’m some sort of_ chippy, toying _with two_ men _that I_ respect _–”_

_ “The thought never crossed my mind.” _

That’s _where she had heard those words before!_ And yet, when Daniel had said them tonight, they had sounded entirely different than when she had said them – then when Mr. Jarvis had objected to the very idea of it.

_Daniel had said such a mean thing_ to her face _._

_Mr. Jarvis hadn’t even wanted to hear her say such a thing about_ herself _…_

Peggy looked at the man in the driver’s seat, stifling a sigh as she wondered to herself, _Why did all the good men have to be married already?_

* * *

At some point during the night, Peggy _knew_ she’d fallen asleep at the desk across the living room, _working on reports she’d brought home from work rather than face her ever-more-despairing love-life._ Yet when she woke to blinding sunlight in the living room, she found herself laying on the couch, one of Mrs. Jarvis’s knitted afghans tucked carefully around her shoulders.

But the blanket had been left to fall wherever it willed over the lower half of her body.

_Her movement had been Mr. Jarvis’s doing, then,_ she thought with a tired half-smile. Anyone else would’ve not bothered to secure it around her shoulders, or would’ve had no qualms touching her legs while she slept. _Strange, wonderful man_.

She sat up slowly, raking her hair out of her face and rolling her shoulders to try and work the stiffness out of her spine.

“Yeah, okay, that’s fine, drive Peg into work, and then come back, ‘cause I’m gonna need your help with car – Mark _Three_ , thank you for wrecking the second,” Howard came around the corner, clutching at a coffee cup like it was his lifeblood and talking louder than was necessary to someone a couple steps behind him.

Mr. Jarvis – who interrupted suddenly, reprimanding, “ _Shh!_ Miss Carter is still _sleeping_ on the couch!”

Howard pointed at her as Jarvis stopped shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “No, she’s not.”

“Not now, she’s not,” Mrs. Jarvis came in too, shooting Howard a disapproving glare as she walked around the men with a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in her hands. Sitting on the edge of the couch beside Peggy, she said, “I was just coming in to wake you up and offer you breakfast.”

Peggy smiled half-heartedly at her, accepting the food. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Mrs. Jarvis glanced her over quickly, a single, thin line of worry appearing between her brows, and Peggy dreaded the question that she knew was coming next. “Do you want to talk about whatever it is that happened last night?”

Peggy shook her head, swallowing the bite of eggs in her mouth before she declared flatly, “It was merely a reaffirmation of a fact I was already beginning to believe – all of the good men in the world are already married.”

It wasn’t a real explanation, but it must’ve been enough to satisfy the redhead’s curiosity, because Mrs. Jarvis gave her an apologetic smile. But, as seemed to be the case between the two of them, she didn’t know what to _say_ whenever Peggy needed comfort, so she said nothing.

Instead, Peggy leaned her head back against the couch, closing her eyes as she muttered dryly to herself, “Stupid bigamy laws…”

“’Bigamy?’” Mrs. Jarvis asked, and when Peggy opened her eyes, it was to see a different sort of confusion on the other woman’s face. “I don’t know that I’ve heard that word before.”

“Oh,” she replied, preparing to explain. “I forget that English isn’t your first language.”

“It’s my third, actually.”

Howard spoke up then, explaining to the Jewess, “’Bigamy’ is being legally married to more than one person at a time – which is illegal in America.”

“But what does bigamy have to do with anything?” Mr. Jarvis asked.

Peggy shrugged, absently tearing apart a piece of bacon as she said, “Just a silly thought. If all the good men in the world, who are presumed to be already married, could marry again, then maybe every woman could actually find a good man to be with.”

Howard arched an eyebrow over the rim of his coffee cup, suggesting lightly, “Then find a married man whose wife doesn’t mind him having a second woman in his life.”

“Howard Stark,” Peggy scoffed. “That is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard you say! What sort of a woman wouldn’t mind her husband being with a second woman?!” _And she had thought_ she _was being outlandish…_

Then, from right beside her, Ana Jarvis gently squeezed Peggy’s wrist, and the agent looked over in time to see her glance pointedly towards Mr. Jarvis and back again, a question and permission both in her gaze.

Frantically, not sure she understood, Peggy found herself able to think only, _What?_

Seemingly addressing the room at large again, Mrs. Jarvis said, “I did not know that there was a word for it, and I certainly never considered the idea of a second _marriage_ or that it might be illegal, but… it does seem like it might be a good… solution. And as long as the emotions are there,” here she looked between her husband and Peggy – Howard’s eyes blew wide with understanding, and he disappeared down into the lab without looking back – “It seems to me a piece of paper might not matter so much.”

Hesitantly, as comprehension dawned for both of them, Mr. Jarvis’s and Peggy’s eyes met across the room – and just as slowly, just as timidly, they smiled at one another.


End file.
